


Wolfstar

by This_killed_me_126_times



Series: Songs of Expression [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Confusion, M/M, Panic, Secret Relationship, finding out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:09:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28977186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_killed_me_126_times/pseuds/This_killed_me_126_times
Summary: James and Peter find out about Sirius and Remus' relationship and come up with an... unusual... way to tell them that they know.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Songs of Expression [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125461
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119





	1. The Idea

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off the song "Wolfstar" by the Whomping Willows.

Peter and James trudged up the stairs to their dorm, tired from a full day of classes and then detention. Sirius and Remus were so going to get it for leaving them to take the heat. It wasn’t even their idea, Sirius had come up with it, and Remus had figured out how to execute it; James and Pete were merely accessories, yet they got all the blame. There was no justice in this world anymore. James was still slightly annoyed at Peter for grabbing him when he tripped over during the ‘leg it as fast as you can’ part of the prank, but hadn’t managed to give him the silent treatment for long, there were simply too many ideas for pranks to keep them all in his head. Detention was annoying, although, admittedly, it was all part of being a marauder. There was indeed a high price for greatness.  
James opened the dorm room, still talking animatedly to Peter about this new prank idea he’d had as he entered the room. Sirius and Remus were sat on Remus’ bed, staring at the two boys who had just walked in. James halted suddenly, causing Peter to bump into him and almost fall backwards down the steep dormitory stairs.  
“Woah,” he said, “really weird vibe in here lads, what’s going on?”  
“Nothing,” said Sirius, slightly two quickly, subtly edging away from Remus.  
“Okay,” James shrugged and flopped down onto his bed, oblivious as always, “anyway, I heard you broke up with Olivia today, Padfoot.”  
“Yeah,” Sirius replied slowly, glad he’d let it go so quickly, “she just didn’t have what I was looking for I guess.”  
Remus snorted, trying and failing to suppress his laughter.  
“What’s so funny?” asked Peter, looking even more confused than usual.  
“Nothing,” said Sirius, glaring at Remus, who had managed to regain his composure, “Moony’s just having a brief fit of insanity.”  
“I thought it was supposed to be the Blacks who were insane?” questioned James.  
Sirius shrugged, “maybe it’s contagious?”  
James considered the possibility for a moment, before jumping onto another new topic.  
“Anyway, I’ve got this epic idea for a prank, do you want to hear it?”  
Soon they were in the murky depths of prank planning, all weird vibes and insanity, thankfully, long forgotten.

A few days later, James was still enthusing about his prank idea, which, needless to say, had not been well received, but he was determined to convince the others that it would in fact work. That morning, it was poor Pete who was being subjected to James’s constant torrent of arguments.  
“Come on, Wormtail, you know that it would be awesome! I’m sure Padfoot agrees with me-” He stopped suddenly, looking behind him at Remus and Sirius, who were holding hands?  
They didn’t notice him staring, and, his eyes wide with shock, he quickly turned back to Peter, who was quite relieved that James had finally stopped talking.  
“Look at Moony and Padfoot,” James muttered to Peter, nudging him to look behind them.  
Peter turned and looked, his eyes widening when he saw them holding hands, before quickly averting his eyes. The two boys looked at each other with vague panic. What did it mean?

The next week, James made his way up to the dorm. He was supposed to be researching the spells they’d need for the prank, but it was hardly his fault the library was so incredibly boring that it had made him feel like he was going mad (maybe the Black family insanity really was catching, he thought). After only ten minutes, he had decided that he couldn’t stand it any longer, and he and Pete had decided to play exploding snap instead.  
He opened the door to the dorm with careless abandon, saying, “hey lads, Wormtail and I were going to pl-”  
He stopped abruptly, seeing Sirius and Remus on Remus’ bed again.  
“Lads…” he said slowly, “what in Merlin’s name are you doing?”  
There was an uncomfortably long and rather awkward pause.  
“Playfighting,” Remus finally blurted out.  
James raised an eyebrow, not convinced, especially with what he had seen a few days ago.  
“It’s the canine instinct,” said Sirius, backing Remus up.  
“Right,” replied James, really hoping he could get out quickly, and possibly wash his eyes out with bleach, “well, I hate to break it to you lads, but the position you’re in looks kind of dodgy.”  
Remus and Sirius suddenly regained use of their muscles and scrambled away from each other, Remus blushing furiously.  
“So, what did you want, Prongs?” asked Sirius, with as much pureblood composure as he could possibly muster, which really wasn’t a lot.  
“Nothing,” James replied, backing out of the room and almost falling over his pile of dirty clothes in the process, “I’m just going to go find Pete, he left me in the library and I thought he might of come back here?”  
He hurriedly exited the dorm, practically running back to the library, which was something he never thought he’d be doing.

A few minutes later, Peter and James were back in the library, James panting from legging it all the way across the castle. James told Peter everything that he’d seen in a very jumbly and confusing sort of a way, with lots of his own thoughts interjected into the middle of the story, but, after making various faces of confusion, Peter seemed to have got the gist of it.  
“Wouldn’t it be easiest just to ask them? They are our friends,” said Peter, wringing his hands nervously.  
James waved the suggestion away, “we can’t just ask them Pete. What if they get offended? What if Moony decides to hex us? What if Padfoot decides to tear us to pieces?” he said, getting gradually more hysterical.  
“Then maybe we should just pretend we don’t know?”  
“We can’t do that! Then they might never tell us, and we can’t have a massive secret like that come between us! It would be worse than when we didn’t know Moony’s secret and he was jumpy and anxious around us all the time. What if he gets jumpy and anxious again?!”  
“So then what can we do?”  
James was silent for a minute, thinking through the seemingly impossible conundrum, when he caught sight of Lily a couple of tables over. He started to grin.  
“Evans!” he yelled, making her reluctantly look up from her book, “come over here a minute!”  
Lily strode over with a face like thunder and whispered fiercely, “if you don’t quiet down, we’ll both be kicked out.”  
“Okay,” said James much more quietly, holding his hands up in surrender “don’t hex me!”  
“What do you want?”  
“You spend a lot of time with Remus, right?” James asked.  
“Yes,” she replied, wondering what on earth she was getting herself in for, “because he’s the only one of you that I can tolerate.”  
“We think that he might be going out with Sirius…”  
To the boys’ surprise, she burst out laughing, completely disregarding her own insistence of quiet.  
“What’s so funny?” asked Pete.  
“They’ve been together for WEEKS, and you’re telling me that you’ve only just noticed? I never realised that you were quite this oblivious!”  
“Wait,” said James, “how do you know that they’re together?”  
Lily rolled her eyes, and, noticing that Madame Pince was glaring at them, said much more quietly, “who do you think helped them get together in the first place, genius?”  
James’s eyes lit up, and he grabbed onto her arm, “you have to help us tell them that we know!”  
Lily pulled her arm away, “why would I do that? I don’t like you. Besides, why can’t you just talk to them. They’re your friends.”  
“That’s what I said!” interjected Peter excitedly, earning him a glare from James.  
“Maybe we shouldn’t tell them after all…” said James, mostly to himself.  
“No,” argued Lily, “you have to tell them. They’re probably terrified that you won’t accept them, which is why they haven’t told you in the first place. They don’t want to lose their friends.”  
“But… why wouldn’t we accept them? They’re our mates?” said James in confusion.  
Lily sighed, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but wizards, with their obsession with lineage and producing perfectly pure-blooded heirs, so much so that they’re pretty much down with incest, aren’t exactly pro homosexuality. I mean, muggles aren’t great with it, goodness knows there are plenty of issues there, but they’re a heck of a lot better than wizards. So, you have to tell them, then your weird gang can go back to normal.”  
“But, how?” asked Peter.  
Lily threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, “I don’t know! Sing them a song or something!” she said sarcastically, before storming off back to her books, muttering “boys!” under her breath.  
James thumped his head down on the desk.

After a few minutes, Peter was looking at James, who still hadn’t moved, and he was beginning to get a little bit concerned. Just when he was debating whether to leave and get Madame Pomfrey or try see if James was still alive himself, James sat up.  
“Peter,” he said, turning his head to look at him, “I have an idea.”


	2. Song Writing and Struggling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit in double "" is directly lifted from the song 'Wolfstar' by the Whomping Willows and it's a really good song.

“I still think that this is a really bad idea,” said Peter, looking around nervously, as though they might be ambushed by a herd of angry prefects at any minute.  
“Don’t you think that exploding a different food every time the Slytherins say ‘potatoes’ would cause wonderful, marauder-worthy, chaos? I mean, think how long it would take them to figure out what was going on, let alone reverse the charms. It could go on for hours.” said James dreamily, hardly looking up from the book he was flicking through.  
“I mean, I do think it’s a bad idea and you do know that it will most likely land us in detention for the rest of the year, right?” said Peter, who was reluctantly helping, “but I was actually talking about singing Moony and Padfoot a song. I still don’t get why we can’t just talk to them.”  
James gave an exasperated sigh, and moved onto the next book in his pile, saying, “just trust me Wormtail, this is the best solution.”  
“Well then can’t we just get it over with? Surely it can’t take that long to compose a song.”  
“No Pete, we have to find the spells for the prank first, so we can keep using that as our excuse. Besides, I don’t want it to just be a song. I want it to be the most amazing, wonderful, brilliant, other word that means great, song to ever have graced the world.”  
Peter looked at James in confusion, “But Moony spends so much time in the library,” he replied, started to look around suspiciously again, “what if he sees us?”  
“No,” said James, slightly patronizingly, “because when we’re here, Moony will want to spend time with Padfoot, probably up in the dorm, but certainly not in the library where there are other people around. Now, keep looking.”  
Peter nodded slowly in understanding, before burying his head in a book. He still wasn’t sure where the song came into it, but he found it was better not to question James when he become so set on something. He was usually right anyway.

A couple of hours later, James flung himself back in his seat and looked at the piece of parchment that they’d been writing on, “I think we’ve got everything we need for the prank.”  
“Should we start on the song then?”  
James, feeling like his stomach was going to gnaw through his ribs if he didn’t have something to eat soon, quickly cast Tempus, saying, “no, it’s nearly time for dinner, and we can’t spend too long in the library, or they’ll get suspicious. Especially Moony, you know he’s the suspicious type.”  
James stood up and tucked the parchment carefully in the pocket of his robes. Pete followed him out of the library.  
“We’ll come back tomorrow and start on the song. We can tell the others that we didn’t find anything. They won’t be surprised seeing how completely and utterly boring the library is.”

The next day, they were back in the library trying to come up with a song. James scratched his head with his quill.  
“Huh, this is not as easy as I thought it would be.”  
“It would be easier if we had music to write the words to,” said Peter unhelpfully, at just as much of a loss as James.  
They sat there glumly for a moment, Peter vaguely hoping that James would give up on this whole endeavour, but, unfortunately for him, a moment later James’s eyes lit up.  
“You’ve got it, Pete!” he said, jumping up so enthusiastically that he knocked his chair over, sending a resounding crash throughout the library and earning himself several dirty looks.  
“I…have?” he replied, uncertainly.  
James nodded his head vigorously and leant forward, saying quietly, “we can transfigure a bunch of stuff into instruments, I’m sure I saw a spell for that in this book.”  
He quickly flicked through it, Peter looking on with an expression of pained concern, before James stabbed a page with his finger and yelled “aha!” which was perhaps not the best idea, because now all of the students who were diligently studying looked like they would willing murder him and his entire family for a bit of peace and quiet.  
“I think you should probably cast muffliato, Prongs, especially if you’re going to keep shrieking like that,” said Peter.  
“I do not shriek,” said James indignantly, “it was a shout of excitement… a very manly shout of excitement.”  
But he cast muffliato anyway, because the instruments they were going to transfigure would be very noisy and he was considerate like that, not at all because he was scared of the way Madame Pince was looking at them. Then he pointed his wand at the book in front of him and cast the spell. The quill he was practicing on blurred for a moment before becoming a peculiar guitar-drum hybrid.  
The boys studied it for a while.  
“I think you might need to work on it a bit, mate,” said Peter.  
“I’d like to see you do any better,” grumbled James, annoyed that his natural aptitude for transfiguration had let him down, “anyway, it’s only because it’s the first time. I’ll get it right the next time.”  
He did not, in fact, get it right the next time. Or the next.

After what felt like a thousand attempts, but was really only about an hour, James had managed to get a full band’s worth of instruments and had them playing, rather discorded, music.  
He sat back in his chair, and wiped his forehead with his hand, “phew, I think that’s enough for today. Want to go to the kitchens and get something to eat? It’s ages till dinner.”  
Peter nodded enthusiastically; he was always down for a snack at any time of the day or night.

A week later, and after many hours of work, the song was basically finished. For, hopefully, the last time, they entered the library.  
James shivered as they crossed the threshold, “I think I’m actually allergic to the library,” he mused, “do you think I’ll get a rash?”  
He quickly bunched up the sleeves of his robe and shoved his arm into Peter’s face, “does that look red to you? Do you think I should go to Madame Pomfrey?”  
Peter batted James’s arm away, “you’re fine, Prongs. Now, are we actually going to finish this song?”  
They headed to their conveniently secluded corner of the library (it hadn’t occurred to them that people were deliberately avoiding it because of the chaos they’d created over the last week) and sat down at their usual table. Peter cast muffliato and James transfigured the instruments, which were now all playing nicely in tune with each other.  
They sang through the song a couple of times and decided that it was pretty darn good.  
“So, how are we going to do this?” asked Peter, “we can’t just start singing or they’ll think we’ve gone mad.”  
“Oh ye of little faith,” said James, “I have a splendiferous plan.”  
“Are you going to tell me what it is?” asked Peter, not holding out much hope.  
“You’ll find out soon enough. Come on, let’s get out of this place.”

Before long, they were back up in the dorm, where they pretended not to have noticed that Sirius and Remus were once again ‘playfighting’. James pulled the piece of parchment with the prank spells written on it out of his pocket and handed it to Remus triumphantly.  
“I told you I could find them.”  
“Honestly, I’m surprised, mostly that you managed to spend that long in the library. You know that if you’d actually focussed you could have probably found these in less than two hours, right?”  
James winked not-so-subtly at Peter and said, “how dare you suggest such a thing, Moony. You know I’m allergic to the library.”  
Remus rolled his eyes, “sure you are, Prongs.”  
James hit Remus playfully before saying, “I think you and Padfoot should go and get up some celebratory cake from the kitchen. Me and Pete have done all of the work for this prank so far.”  
“Pete and I,” muttered Remus, but didn’t exactly look unhappy about being sent on an errand with Sirius.

When the two boys were safely out of the room, James started to set everything up. He transfigured the instruments and put them all in the right places, carefully adjusting each one so it looked exactly right.  
Just as he’d finished, he heard Remus and Sirius on the stairs.  
“Ready Pete?” he whispered.  
Peter nodded.

The two boys entered the dorm room and froze when they saw James and Peter with their set up. They eyed them suspiciously.  
“One! Two! Three! Four!” yelled James, started the instruments.  
They started to sing, pretending that they were playing the guitars they were holding.  
"“Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody knows that it’s true. Sirius you’re in love with Remus; Remus is into you too…”"  
Sirius grabbed Remus’ hand protectively and had the presence of mind to close the door, casting a quick muffliato charm so they weren’t outed to the entire castle.  
They slowly sank down onto the nearest bed, wondering what caused this and wishing James and Peter could just talk to them like normal humans so they would know if they’d lost their friends or not. Although, to be fair, the song did suggest not. It was also surprisingly good and Sirius found himself tapping his foot to the beat.

Eventually, the two boys finished the song and stood in front of them panting. Remus wondered if they were supposed to clap, but he was frankly too stunned to move at all and he guessed Sirius felt the same way, considering that he still had Remus’s hand in a death grip.  
“Bloody hell lads,” panted James, “you could have at least applauded. Do you know how many hours we spent in the library composing that?”  
“Bu-but how did you find out?” spluttered Remus.  
James rolled his eyes, “come on mate, you’re not exactly subtle. It wasn’t difficult to work out.”  
“Lily told us,” interjected Peter helpfully.  
Sirius raised his eyebrows at James, who went red.  
“She might have confirmed our suspicions, but I basically worked it all out myself.”  
“Sure you did, Prongs,” said Sirius, “I guess that means we’re not going to lose our mates then.”  
“You’re not- we just- did you not even hear the whole entire song we wrote?!” said James, gesturing indignantly.  
“It was a lovely song, Prongs,” said Remus hastily, not wanting to deal with James getting hysterical right now.  
Peter and James sat down on the bed opposite; James transfiguring everything back to normal.  
“We are really okay with it though, lads,” said Peter quietly.  
“Yeah, just don’t go snogging around us ALL of the time.”  
“We won’t,” said Sirius, grinning, “just as soon as you stop pining uselessly after Evans.”  
He leaned in to kiss Remus, but was hit in the face by a pillow instead, thrown with a chaser’s accuracy at his head.  
Soon they had all descended into the madness of a pillow fight and they felt lighter than they had in ages. Free and without the weight of secrets on their shoulders.


End file.
